Green addresses health-care disparities in pain medicine

Nov. 3 lecture at UC Davis Health System in Sacramento is free and open to the public

Dr. Carmen Green is committed to improving quality and equality in pain care.

Posted Oct. 27, 2010

Carmen R. Green, an anesthesiologist and pain medicine physician from the University of Michigan Health System, will speak on the Sacramento campus of UC Davis. Green is an expert on improving quality and equality in health care and in addressing the undertreatment of pain among minorities, women and the elderly.

Her lecture — “The Unequal Burden and Unheard Voices of Pain: Creating a Health-care System With Justice for All” — takes place Wednesday, Nov. 3, at 5 p.m.in the UC Davis MIND Institute auditorium, 2825 50th St., Sacramento. The event is free and open to the public. Reservations can be made by e-mailing specialevents@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu or calling 916-734-9101. A map and driving directions are online at www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute.

Green is a professor of anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and health management and policy. She also is a faculty associate with her university’s cancer center, depression center and Institute for Social Research. She serves as the director of the Healthier Black Elders Center for the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research and as principal investigator for the Michigan Pain Outcomes Study Team, which evaluates differences in pain-management outcomes based on racial, ethnic, age, gender and socioeconomic factors.

“That health and health-care disparities exist at all is unconscionable,” said Green, “and the fact that women, people of color, elders and the poor are less likely to have their pain complaints addressed and to receive adequate and safe pain care is unacceptable. My goal is to change that fact by improving the quality of pain care for all.”

Green’s address is part of the UC Davis Health System Dean's Lecture Series, which brings nationally recognized voices to Sacramento to illuminate how science, technology and policy can improve health and health care for all. The series is hosted by Claire Pomeroy, chief executive officer of UC Davis Health System, vice chancellor for human health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine at UC Davis, as part of her commitment to link the community with leaders in reducing health disparities.

UC Davis School of Medicine is among the nation’s leading medical schools, recognized for its specialty- and primary-care programs. The school offers combined medical and master’s degree programs in public health, business administration and rural health, as well as a combined medical and doctoral degree for physician scientists interested in addressing specific scientific, social, ethical and political challenges of health care. Along with being a leader in health-care research, the school is known for its commitment to people from underserved communities and a passion for clinical care.